[Balance] Legion Discussion

[Madus]

I think there is no reason to talk about SF anymore, its not gonna change for sure and it is not as much problem as other things. Damage is maybe low but maybe some specs have OP damage so its irrelevant plus if its srsly low it can be hotfixed anytime.

1.What i dont understand why pures have better selfhealing like us AND they have better defensive cooldowns too, this is nonsense imho. We lost NV while they got selfheals, like srsly? Whole PvP (be it teplate or world) is nonsense right now and Holinka should be fired because his team of feedback ignoring monkeys basicaly fucked up pretty nice expansion. Everything in Legion looks good (quests, lore, worldquests, dungeons, even new garrison, app) till you dont join PvP. They have tempates and can balance spells around pvp, even add/modify new ones with honor talents, yet current pvp is worse then worst season ever S5...

2. Why we dont have some kind dispell protection on STFL, i got it that MF/SF should not have protection bcs instant cast/no cost/direct dmg at all but STFL costs you talent, cast time with astral school and asp. Class with 3 dots and dot empowering high asp cost aoe should have some kind dot protection, so we can actually execute it.

3. Innervate looks like a oversight, absolute wrong design, devs talking how symbiose was wrong and then they implement this...

4. Removal of Ursol Vortex, while adding FoE and making SF target circle aoe. Why the fuck you would broke that combo ?

[Cyous]

FOE is more rewarding yet harder to use? How is that an issue? Frankly, min/max'ing FOE is hard, but it's not like 2 ticks will net you a progression kill. It's tolerable and encourages the player to practice if they want to be better.

Taking credit for some major designs, as in 2-3 -- there's a difference between actively talking, communicating and passing on ultra-high-end discussions through the proper channels and simply telling them "do this, do that." Many friends have been hired, and those channels are available when needed. Being friends has no impact on our feedback, it's an extremely high standard if you want to convince them of anything. They make the decisions, and we simply discuss what we like and don't like. If we're strongly opposed to a design, we state it as such. If we think a shift in damage allocation is better for the spec, we argue it between ourselves, then post a detailed analysis and a TL;DR footnote. It's always public. Discord stuff is mostly bugs/QA, or verification, such as how to calculate Empowerment bonuses. They don't have to make changes because we want them to, we need to convince them it's a problem. And we really don't have many problems because they've fixed most of them.

Specifically on WOD's Starfall. THis was quite literally our 2min talk. "Do you really want Starfall as a passive AOE effect?" --> "Yes, but not usable in single-target." --> "The plan is Starsurge to have charges, right? That is a ST spell. Why not share charges so that you'll want to use Starsurge in ST, rather than Starfall?" --> "That isn't a bad idea." --> Added a couple weeks later.

If you want them to take your feedback seriously, you need to learn to accept a design you may not like. They want details for everything, not just 6 months worth of complaints on Starfall.

[Synadrasa]

FOE is more rewarding yet harder to use? How is that an issue? Frankly, min/max'ing FOE is hard, but it's not like 2 ticks will net you a progression kill. It's tolerable and encourages the player to practice if they want to be better.

Taking credit for some major designs, as in 2-3 -- there's a difference between actively talking, communicating and passing on ultra-high-end discussions through the proper channels and simply telling them "do this, do that." Many friends have been hired, and those channels are available when needed. Being friends has no impact on our feedback, it's an extremely high standard if you want to convince them of anything. They make the decisions, and we simply discuss what we like and don't like. If we're strongly opposed to a design, we state it as such. If we think a shift in damage allocation is better for the spec, we argue it between ourselves, then post a detailed analysis and a TL;DR footnote. It's always public. Discord stuff is mostly bugs/QA, or verification, such as how to calculate Empowerment bonuses. They don't have to make changes because we want them to, we need to convince them it's a problem. And we really don't have many problems because they've fixed most of them.

Specifically on WOD's Starfall. THis was quite literally our 2min talk. "Do you really want Starfall as a passive AOE effect?" --> "Yes, but not usable in single-target." --> "The plan is Starsurge to have charges, right? That is a ST spell. Why not share charges so that you'll want to use Starsurge in ST, rather than Starfall?" --> "That isn't a bad idea." --> Added a couple weeks later.

That 2 min talk seems akin to an "extremely high standard".

[Alame]

Moonkins werent the best class for the job, they did use moonkins since they had so many of them. If they were able to use melee on the fight they would've done so.

Being ranged was the reason why they had so many moonkins.

So Moonkins the moonkin toolkit, which provided Nature's Vigil to keep them alive, DoTs & Starfall to clear the adds quickly & efficiently, and was ranged in general and therefore more favourable for the rest of the fight, is not an example of why Moonkins were exceptional on that fight. Okay.

This just in, designers actually talk to players. Players give feedback, designers decided to listen to it.

And of the mountains and mountains of feedback we presented from numerous different people you claim to be responsible for almost all the changes that were made. I already know you discuss with the devs directly because of your attempts to placate my complaints with "insider info." As for designers talking to players, those of us they chose not to talk to asked for some form of correspondence for months and got nothing. Is it a coincidence that the design is mostly shaped by your feedback, and you so vehemently defend it?

I disliked how binary WOD Moonkin was, I asked them to make something with more complexity, they gave us a product with more complexity. Shocking how feedback works.

Yes, feedback from the community. Clearly only a subset of that feedback was taken into account. As for the complexity, that remains to be seen.

What's so complex about FOE? Sure there's a learning curve, and they want it to be a difficult spell to use. The only issue is other players/tanks moving. This is part of the difficulty -- you should ask them why they haven't made FOE auto-fixate -- maybve they'll tell you exactly what I've explained for the past 6 months on that subject.

I've versed my opinions on this before. The level of impact it has on the playstyle & the demands on the player for good execution aren't in line with the payoff. The damage simply isn't high enough for how much of the rotation & build it co-opts. When your entire talent build and rotation are focused around optimal usage of FoE, and time-filling until it's off cooldown it should be the primary source of damage by a significant margin in builds using it. Usability issues with movement aside, it's poorly designed in that you take a flashy and attractive ability and make the skill cap so high on it you're punishing players for wanting to use the one cool part of the kit. What percentage of the playerbase do you think is capable of executing FoE perfectly? FoE is also propped up as a talent by just how bad the other t100 talents are. Sure FoE offers additional complexity, compared to the other two, entirely passive talents. As for auto-fixating, that's always been a terrible idea, not sure how that's relevant.

Legion is clearly "pick your complexity" -- just because you aren't p[laying complex talents doesn't mean the complexity isn't there. Look at the interactions between DOTs and Starfall, how about Stellar Flare and FOE together? How about teaching yourself to line up maximum AP for FOE? How about executing all those little details during a boss encounter where shit can hit the fan even on a good pull? Just because you won't look doesn't give you the right to claim the complexity isn't there.

You mean the entirely passive interaction between DoTs and Starfall, which is in large part responsible for making Balance garbage in Mythic+? I thought entirely passive damage was a bad thing?
Stellar Flare and FoE together will literally never happen, because 1. Stellar Flare is still garbage, and 2. Incarnation has far superior synergy through additional AsP generation. When you're talking about complexity leading to mix/maxing you must assume players will be min/maxing. No mix/maxing player will ever take StF & FoE together.
Maximum AP for FoE is literally the only additional complexity we were given, and as we've gone over several times that has it's own problems.
All those "little details" during a boss encounter exist in every single spec, it's called managing a rotation. This is not unique to Balance and should not be relevant.

For reference, WOD had 3 major min/max details:
-- Starfall/Starsurge accordingly
-- Starsurge near max Eclipse so you can fit 4 Lunar Strikes and 2 Starsurges near the sweet spot.
-- Who can shit on the boss the hardest for 15sec.
-- Bonus: DOT refreshes (which was negligible in nearly all cases) 500-1000 DPS on patchwerk...lol.

As opposed to:
- Starfall/Starsurge accordingly
- [IF TAKEN] Who can keep FoE up the longest
- Who can use Moon charges the fastest???

Still not seeing where all the complexity is. It's a basic, formulaic rotation with a suite of boring and mostly passive talents (the viable ones at any rate) with one potentially good mechanic in FoE.

As for you scoffing about "500-1000 DPS on patchwerk", Nagura did ~63k damage on Method's Zakuun kill, and that's the closest thing to Patchwerk in the tier. You think a min/maxing player isn't going to care about 0.8-1.5% extra damage? What do you think your raid leader would've said to you if you refused to gem a socket because it's "1% dps on patchwerk...lol"? And even if the effect sucks, playing it optimally is still better than ignoring it. What kind of min/maxer turns down a DPS increase because it's too small? If you want a complex, min/maxing spec, lots of small interactions such as DoT refreshes that all contribute when done correctly to a noticeable impact on DPS should be your end goal.

Starfall being great for 1 fight. Wow, that's totally an indication of how useful it was, right?

Stands on Kargath
Spore Shooters on Brackenspore
5-8 targets on Tectus
Arcane Anomalies on Ko'ragh
Adds in general on Mar'gok, particularly in transition phase
Crates on Oregorger
Adds on Blast Furnace
Dogs on Flamebender
Hands on Kromog
Spears/Adds on Beastlord
Adds on Thogar
Split-up bosses on Maidens
Ledges on Blackhand
Mobs on Hellfire Assault
Bombs on Iron Reaver
Hands on Kromrok
Bloods/Adds on Killrog
Spread bosses on High Council
Souls on Gorefiend
Adds on Iskar
Ghosts on Socrethar
Imps/Adds on Xhul'horac
Imps/Infernals on Mannoroth
Adds on Archimonde

Several of those new Starfall is incapable of doing, most of which new Starfall is inferior on. But yes, it was useful for one fight.

Plus, you could just use 1 moonkin with Cooldowns instead, but 2 made it easier? WOW. Not to mention how great melee was for BH. So great for melee, they only kept Rogues to immune the damage.

Yes, but when you're pushing for world first and p2 lasts longer than 2 sets of ledges you suddenly cant use 1 boomkin. You clear 1 ledge and now need a new strategy for all ledges within 3 minutes. Unless you simply bring more Boomkins to stagger cooldowns and have them solo all the ledges, which would suggest that Boomkins are really good for ledges. I really don't see how the two of you are trying to claim Boomkins weren't uniquely useful on Blackhand. Their kit allowed them to almost-trivialize a mechanic that made the fight the challenge it was. Method's use of Boomkin stacking to trivialize the ledges saw them get a world first. Paragon's use of 2 boomkins saw them finish second.

[Juvencus]

To be fair, the charges Starfall was the best iteration since its conception (if you exclude the WotLK splash damage part).

High uptime; improvement from the cd versions
Charge procs; improvement from the Lunar eclipse reset
High damage; improvement from the glorified ST spell it was in MoP

In this case, I wouldn't care less how high standard the conversation to make it happen was.

Can you please stop this ridiculous conversation. I'm reading this thread because i want to hear something interesting and helpful for my druid and not someone complaining about "meh, my brainafk-to-use starfall is gone and i don't shine easy as f**k on pe**s-meters".
This is just annoying.

Thanks

The fact that there is nothing new to say, until raids open, is what allowed this conversation to even begin.

[lappee]

So Moonkins the moonkin toolkit, which provided Nature's Vigil to keep them alive, DoTs & Starfall to clear the adds quickly & efficiently, and was ranged in general and therefore more favourable for the rest of the fight, is not an example of why Moonkins were exceptional on that fight. Okay.

NV made us better than most for balcony but we werent the best - not even close. Balcony was the only thing we were above average caster on that fight, by no means were we "exceptional". We used 2 moonkins on our kill and the only reason we killed it far later than them is because we didnt have enough geared hunters.

Moonkins were no gods on that fight and the only reason they brought so many moonkins along was that you couldn't use melees on the fight.

[Madus]

Several of those new Starfall is incapable of doing, most of which new Starfall is inferior on. But yes, it was useful for one fight.

+ For PvP is new one inferior too. But PvP is so badly designed that i can understand the oversight...

[Xandrigity]

I used starlord for leveling and now that Im running dungeons Ive switched to FON I find I really miss the haste buff more than I like the treants. The rotation feels so clunky and a lot less forgiving for movement. Im going back to starlord.

[Weissrolf]

One problem with Starlord is Owlkin Frenzy. I don't know how often I saw that proc during empowerments, effectively making Starlord useless.

[Xandrigity]

One problem with Starlord is Owlkin Frenzy. I don't know how often I saw that proc during empowerments, effectively making Starlord useless.

Thats true to a point but I see owl kin triggering far less in a dungeon than I do out in the world.

[Madus]

One problem with Starlord is Owlkin Frenzy. I don't know how often I saw that proc during empowerments, effectively making Starlord useless.

Doesnt it shorten your gcd ?

[Cyous]

...

I've already fucking said it. I claim a very select few changes, everything else was heavily discussed with respected names. Obviously I still share my opinion. I didn't debate Bologna on various issues for weeks by telling him "this is how it is." He made a lot of very strong points, I adopted them into my personal opinion because I felt they were valid, even if I didn't agree fully agree on the issues. While I held my opinion that Stellar Flare was too much of a trap (when it consumed multiple empowerments), he was worried about Empowerment overflow/uptime. Stellar Flare didn't feel great at 30 AP cost -- everyone's feedback, so it was adjusted.

Jesus fuck man, you're hopeless. You still complain about the same shit from 6 months ago and actually think they resnpod and listen to everything? Take a fucking hint: They weren't talking to anyone. Do you think I'd be complaining against my "own designs?" There's a reason why I stopped reading your feedback -- it was the same whiny bullshit week after week. Long drawn-out posts that no one wanted to read because it was literally the same shit you said a week before. "Insider Info" is shit they sent through the pipeline, and I happen to catch them in a good mood. "Hey, how do you guys feel about Collapsing Stars?" -- "We're changing it, so don't worry about it." -- WHELP OKAY THEN.

The overwhelming majority of MY PERSONAL FEEDBACK was taken from the arguments and complaints of the community. Who ever had strong ideas were given more attention. If I recall correctly, most of your suggestions were basically asking for a complete overhaul of the spec. It's a shitty idea and not one I'm going to waste my time with. You're entitled to you opinion, but your ideas can still be awful. I have a ton of shitty ideas too. No one is immune to a bad idea. The difference is I move on from my shitty ideas while you admire the stench and try to get offers to sniff your shit.

What do I think about Naguura getting 1% more damage? Good for her. She did enough damage to wiggle against the edge of the error bar. You still look at these "examples" as static systems when they're very clearly dynamic. 1% more damage, or a WArrior with an extra Execute crit? Unless they were struggling to meet enrage, that 1% is negligible. It's closer to no DPS gain AND has no tangible impact with 13 DPS in the group. BUT HEY MAN, 0.3% DPS is 0.3% DPS ON A PATCHWERK FIGHT.

Stands on Kargath -- LOL, you're really going to count the glorified trash boss?
Spore Shooters on Brackenspore -- Stellar Drift
5-8 targets on Tectus -- Lol, LEgion easily handles this
Arcane Anomalies on Ko'ragh -- Legion can do this too
Adds in general on Mar'gok, particularly in transition phase -- Legion can handle most of this.
Crates on Oregorger -- Oh good, you finally got one.
Adds on Blast Furnace -- Stellar Drift helps a ton
Dogs on Flamebender -- Stellar Drift
Hands on Kromog -- Stellar Drift (Starfall has 10 target limit bruh)
Spears/Adds on Beastlord -- LEgion can hit these
Adds on Thogar -- LEgion can hit these
Split-up bosses on Maidens -- Stellar Drift would cover most of the floor
Ledges on Blackhand -- Stellar Drift would cover up most of the balcony
Mobs on Hellfire Assault -- LOL, this is fine for Legion
Bombs on Iron Reaver -- You got 2 now.
Hands on Kromrok -- Why starfall when you can FOE?
Bloods/Adds on Killrog -- Oh, it seems you're considering the class trinket now LOL
Spread bosses on High Council -- Stellar Drift easily reaches
Souls on Gorefiend -- Stellar Drift covers a lot, plus you'd be single-target'ing adds in the belly.
Adds on Iskar -- LOL, LEgion can easily do this
Ghosts on Socrethar -- LEgion can easily do this.
Imps/Adds on Xhul'horac -- LEgion can easily do this.
Imps/Infernals on Mannoroth -- You could probably use Stellar Flare is they lived long enough, than Starfall would shit on WOD's Starfall.
Adds on Archimonde -- Legion can still handle this.

By "several" you mean 2-3? Then yes, you're right.

As for Blackhand. It's still only 1 fight. Starfall got better use out of farming legacy than it did in WOD content, inside instanced zones at least. We were elvelnig gods I guess.

- - - Updated - - -

+ For PvP is new one inferior too. But PvP is so badly designed that i can understand the oversight...

We're godly in BGs. Arenas isn't focused on spread pressure too much, unless we play LSD2 again.

Starfall is very good for domination maps, anything with a big teamfight. Huge ST burst and insane AOE pressure.

- - - Updated - - -

That 2 min talk seems akin to an "extremely high standard".

You misunderstand. That conversation was with nothing in place. Try to convince them to give Starfall it's own charge count, and not share with Starsurge. That's what it's like.

[Druidking]

I'm going to get away from the Starfall discussion (argument) and get back to some theorycrafting.

I am a very experienced moonkin and have played a moonkin/resto Druid in every expansion, but I still read the moonkin guides and discussion on here and the wow forums for tips/ideas.

What I am wondering is why everyone is saying that Emerald Dreamcatcher and Oneth's Intuition are the best legendaries. How is it possible that it isn't Inpeccable Fel Essence? With FoE and impeccable Fel essence, you could possibly get incarn up for every FoE. A 40 second duration FoE would drop incarn to a 2 minute cd, and then you would still have 50 seconds to try and drop it another 30 seconds (6 starsurges). Would this really not provide more damage than the other 2?

[Deleted]

When gearing does ilvl trump secondary stats? For example would a 850 Mastery / Vers item be better than a 845 Haste / Mastery one, or is it not worth giving up the haste?

[Madus]

We're godly in BGs. Arenas isn't focused on spread pressure too much, unless we play LSD2 again.

Starfall is very good for domination maps, anything with a big teamfight. Huge ST burst and insane AOE pressure.[/B]

Well, "godly" status in total fucked up PvP doesnt mean anything. It will be all time inferior to old one just because you can outrun it (hello pruned Ursol Vortex...), and good chunk of our dots damage is tied to this aoe circle. But yea for epeen meters is new one good too.

[Darmal]

Would the suggestion made about 10 pages back, that a Lunar Strike hit on a target with a Stellar Empowerment active causes Moonfire to splash to enemies in the same range as Sunfire improve our "burst AoE"? It seemseems like an elegant solution as it wouldn't affect our ST damage at all, doesn't increase our cleave appreciably as you were probably already Moonfiring that additional target, and you wouldn't necessarily have to shift damage from the Stellar Empowerment to Starfall proper damage (though that is still a good idea.) I certainly can't take credit for the idea, but I liked it.

[huth]

NV made us better than most for balcony but we werent the best - not even close. Balcony was the only thing we were above average caster on that fight, by no means were we "exceptional". We used 2 moonkins on our kill and the only reason we killed it far later than them is because we didnt have enough geared hunters.

Moonkins were no gods on that fight and the only reason they brought so many moonkins along was that you couldn't use melees on the fight.

What made us good was being decent for it and being able to get on the balcony at the start of phase 2 to take care of the first wave.

Doesnt it shorten your gcd ?

Yes. Below the regular cap, even.



FoE is poorly designed. It's payoff for increased complexity, but the RoI is limited, it's a very tight niche, and others messing up can ruin your day. It's pretty much only useful for people with tightly knit groups that all know what they're doing and what each other is doing and regularly do cleave fights.

[Frostyfire14]

When gearing does ilvl trump secondary stats? For example would a 850 Mastery / Vers item be better than a 845 Haste / Mastery one, or is it not worth giving up the haste?

A 5 item level difference, I'd say stick with the haste item until you can get an 850 haste item!

[lappee]

What made us good was being decent for it and being able to get on the balcony at the start of phase 2 to take care of the first wave.

Any class could get there given you had a mage to slow fall you.

[Alame]

I've already fucking said it. I claim a very select few changes, everything else was heavily discussed with respected names. Obviously I still share my opinion. I didn't debate Bologna on various issues for weeks by telling him "this is how it is." He made a lot of very strong points, I adopted them into my personal opinion because I felt they were valid, even if I didn't agree fully agree on the issues. While I held my opinion that Stellar Flare was too much of a trap (when it consumed multiple empowerments), he was worried about Empowerment overflow/uptime. Stellar Flare didn't feel great at 30 AP cost -- everyone's feedback, so it was adjusted.

Ah yes, half of those scenarios can still be done if the player takes Stellar Drift. You know, that garbage, entirely passive talent that is almost unanimously denounced and that you yourself wanted changed for the vast majority of development. Clearly gimping our overall damage output to make a former ability comparable to what it was last expac is a choice players will be thrilled to make. As for everything Legion can still do? Yes, but to lesser effect - most of those adds (Ko'ragh, Socrethar, Mar'gok) are short-lived to the point where Starfalls ramp-up time is extremely relevant. I expect you'll continue to claim that ramp up isn't an issue, but we already know your opinion is the minority in that case. In general you seem incapable of understanding that your opinons on Starfall are not nearly as widely held as you seem to think. The "99% of boomkins hated WoD Starfall" the most obvious example.

As for my feedback, I presented numerous instances of feedback, from entire overhauls to things as small as removing the BotA cooldown or having one artifact trait increase splash radius on Lunar Strike. Maybe my posts are long and drawn out, but that's because I believe its my responsibility to explain and justify my ideas, not simply pop up and say "this is best" and expect people to accept that based on who I am. Clearly you and I differ there.

You claim to want more complexity and skill in the rotation, but scoff at the thought of DPS increases granted by such because they're small. You claim Legion Boomkin has significantly more complexity but have yet to provide examples of such. Even if FoE were an auto-pick talent (which it's not, despite the sad state of the other two) your rotation is complex for ~15 seconds out of 90, and back to formulaic rotations for the other 83% of the time.

Clearly this conversation is going nowhere. I've said my piece, so I'll just go back to enjoying my DH and wait for the next Balance rework.